Do I have to pick just one? I've started work on another novel- "Nekiya", I think you've read Chapter 1. There's also the worldbuilding/writing exercise that I read an excerpt from at the Bardic Circle, and I want to finish the "illuminated" version of the Irish Saga I translated, and I'm helping write "Signals:Everest", and I've got another (non-campaign) LARP idea that I'm going to work on with larp_tech. But I think it will probably be "Nekiya", mostly...

2. If you could have taken part in any major archaeological discovery, what would it have been, and why?

Can it be epigraphy, rather than archaeology per se? If so, I'd have wanted to be in on the decipherment of Maya hieroglyphs, especially right after Thompson's suzerainty over the field faded and some of the modern ideas were taking hold. It was a heady time, when a wide range of assumptions about ancient Maya culture and religion were getting overturned.

If we're talking field archaeology… Sutton Hoo or The "Lady of Vix" or Pakal's Tomb - these are all major discoveries in their field, that told us a great deal about the cultures involved, but haven't gotten the attention that, say, Tutankhamun's tomb has gotten. Or KV5, because it's a startling discovery, albeit not a glamorous one.

3. How do you think we, as a society, should begin to address the spiritual quagmires-- church vs. state, religious intolerance, religious zealots vs. rabid atheists, general extremism, the fight to protect minority religions' rights, etc-- that we face today in order to promote healing and peace?

Gah. That's a tough one. I don't really have any conclusive answers. Teach tolerance and moderation. Encourage the "higher common sense"- decision by consideration of context and unique aspects as much as (or more than) simple "litmus tests". Fight ignorance, especially willful ignorance. Realize that you can't legislate morality. Fanaticism of all kinds preys on economic, political, and social injustice- if we defeat those, we remove a huge number of recruits for the fanatics. Remember that the aeonal change that we're going through has a good and a bad side- and that we have to work to make sure that the good wins. Don't lose hope and don't give up. And, above all, never give in to the temptation to demonize your opponents- all or most of the great horrors of human history were caused by saying "those guys aren't human."

4. What was your coolest personal achievement/moment in a LARP? (yes believe it or not I'm *asking* for an "I was so cool" SMOG story!!) ?

That would have to be the 2001 XPI Tourney game. My character Miklos Raven died saving the world. The bad guys were trying to flood the place, and had already started the process. Miklos had a way of contacting a "dragon" (think vastly powerful elemental being). He and his friends managed to convince it to intervene, find out the ritual to allow it to happen, and (with help from most of the other PCs) defeat the forces trying to stop them. While this was happening, Tierana Raven (ravenrose's PC) told him she loved him, and they managed a night of bittersweet romance. The next day, as night was falling, Miklos marched up the hill, head high and eyes open, straight into the jaws of death. With all the other PCs in the town protecting them from a horrific onslaught, he and Tierana performed the ritual that stopped the flood, and Miklos died in doing it. Then I got to lie in state as his body, while various folks said their goodbyes. Then I got to attend my own funeral. It's hard to top all that. Everything happened just right- it felt like a story, not a game.

5. What does it mean to you to be a romantic (in the philosophical as well as intimate sense)?

It means listening to the truth your heart speaks, as much (or more than) the truth your mind speaks. I think there is more than one kind of truth- there is "poetic truth", which lies in the domain where science cannot test or prove. "Beauty is truth and truth beauty." It is giving rationality its place as a tool, but by no means the greatest; a servant and not a ruler, to be laid aside when not needed. "The lunatic, the lover and the poet/ Are of imagination all compact." It is remembering that there is and always will be Mystery, and that this is the right way for things to be. "But poetry declares it differently/ Older still and lovelier far, this mystery/ And I will not forget."

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me." 2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions. 3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions. 4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. 5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Thank you! That was cool. And hey, I figured I'd throw you some softballs. ;-)

Yes, I did read the beginning of "Nekiya" and I am glad you are returning to it...it's a wonderful story. But I also look forward to your illuminated manuscript because I think those are so amazing in general. And yay you for possibly getting larp_tech to do a project of his own again!

Your point about the aeon change is well taken...I realized that I've been keeping up with those issues on such a purely political level that I'd really compartmentalized it lately. It certainly does give a rather interesting context for all the crap that's been going on of late.